


Room for Improvement

by ceterum



Category: The Rookie (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M, Post-Episode s02e07, Pre-Relationship, Training, Unresolved Sexual Tension, they're both still very much in denial though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-15
Packaged: 2021-01-31 08:21:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21443140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceterum/pseuds/ceterum
Summary: Lucy has been pushing herself harder than ever before, determined not to lose another fight. Tim notices —of course he does— and promptly volunteers to help.
Relationships: Tim Bradford/Lucy Chen
Comments: 39
Kudos: 181





	Room for Improvement

It doesn’t take long for Tim to notice.

One day, they’re first on the scene of a reported home invasion. His hand touches her shoulder, letting her know he’s right behind her as they prepare to move in, and she _flinches_. Flinches because she was thrown around like a sack of potatoes by a spirited instructor the night before, and has an ugly bruise to show for it.

Once the danger is over and the suspect is apprehended, he pulls her aside and asks if she’s hurt. She tells him overdid her workout the day before, and, luckily, he lets it go.

Not for long.

Over the following weeks, she sees him notice the small things. A raised eyebrow when he finds her in the back of a convenience store, restraining the suspected shoplifter on the ground with a rear choke hold. A contemplative look after she repeatedly shows up to work with the ends of her hair still wet from shower after her long morning run. A frown that one time she chews out — admittedly a smidge more harshly than necessary — a nineteen-year-old college kid who tries to play the girl card after Lucy catches her with a bag of coke.

He hasn’t brought up any of it yet, but, knowing him, it’s only a matter of time now.

Not today, though. The shift is over and the last time she saw Tim, he was being invited for a drink by some of the guys they helped out on a call today.

Jackson’s gone home too. All it took was one look at the gym bag on her shoulder for him to know that she won’t be joining him any time soon.

The warm-up part is quick and easy. She’s alone in the training room, going through her now already routine daily session, with worn-out training equipment and generic inspirational posters as her only company. She has changed into her workout clothes, her hair pulled back in a simple ponytail and her hands wrapped in tape.

It’s not long before she moves on to the punching bag. She starts by delivering a series of straight punches to the bag, alternating hands, throwing her full force into each punch. Her muscles burn, but it feels _good_. She goes through familiar motions, her fists up and her blood pumping, silence in the room broken only by an ever-changing rhythm of her feet bouncing against the floor and knuckles hitting the bag. It’s late, and she’s the only one here, but she’s got plenty of energy to burn off.

She’s been pushing herself harder than ever before, harder even than at the Academy, running longer every morning, spending her free evenings at the advanced self-defense class led by a friend of a friend, _because_—

All it takes is for her to close her eyes and she’s on the ground again, beaten, helpless, frustrated — and swearing to herself that she’ll never feel like that again.

She _chose_ this job, _chose_ this life, and, now more than ever, she’s determined to excel at it. Whatever it takes.

Maybe Tim got it right that disastrous first day, maybe it did start off as an act of rebellion against her parents, her upbringing, all the expectations other people had of her. But this is her life now, and she _will_ fight for it.

_Her lack of height and all 6 ft 2, 180-pound men of the world be damned. _

As it happens every time she lets her thoughts linger too long on it, her throat goes tight and she’s clenching her fists without even realizing. She wants to hit something. So she does.

She rolls her shoulders and throws two punches in quick succession — first jabbing with her left arm, then crossing with her right — and then performs the sequence again. And again. And again.

She quickly loses count, her head blissfully clear of everything except her next move. _Jab-cross. Jab-cross. Jab-cross._ She doesn’t let up, not until her muscles are burning with a blinding white-hot flame under her skin. Only then does she finally step away, eyes closed as she draws in heavy breaths, her heartbeat raging in her chest.

When she opens them again, her gaze immediately catches on a dimly lit figure in the doorway, and she has to do a double take. As if she summoned him with her thoughts, Tim is there, leaning against the doorway, arms crossed, his gaze fixed on her. He’s in his training gear — shorts and one of those sleeveless shirts that can’t possibly be appropriate workplace attire.

When she meets his gaze across the room, he doesn’t react, not at first. He doesn’t seem surprised to find her here either, despite the fact that he usually likes to get a workout in before shift, which means they haven’t yet crossed paths here since after-shift visits became a part of her routine.

She waits for him to say something, but he simply holds her gaze for a moment longer and then kicks off the doorway and steps inside. Hesitatingly, she goes back to punching, but still tracks his movement out of the corner of her eye. He doesn’t wrap his hands, doesn’t go for the weight bench or one of the treadmills — instead, he takes his time walking over to her corner of the room. Which finally leads her to suspect that _she_ may be the reason he’s here, just as he approaches on the other side of the bag.

Once again, she expects him to say something, maybe bring up the newest bruise on her arm she knows he noticed this morning. He does none of that. Instead, he braces his hands against the bag just as her hook connects with it.

She snaps her hand back and halts for a moment, looking at him in question. His head tilts to the side, but he doesn’t provide an answer. He seems content to just hold the bag for her while his eyes watch her intently, slightly narrowed like he’s trying to figure something out. 

He still hasn’t said anything, so neither does she, and simply resumes her session like he’s not there.

_Except he is_ — and, as a result, her concentration keeps slipping. Her attempt to focus on her punches is woeful at best, since he’s so clearly hell bent on figuring out what’s powering them. Like she suspected, he has realized something is up with her, just doesn’t know what, and is now studying her every move like sooner or later one of them will give it away.

Actually, it wouldn’t surprise her if it did. He seems to be annoyingly good at reading her.

The topic of reading only brings up more trouble. She’s suddenly painfully aware of what happened the last time they were together in this room — her getting flustered and saying more than she should have, then ducking out before she could embarrass herself further. It certainly doesn’t help to calm her already frayed nerves now.

She quickly pushes those thoughts aside — there’s no room for them now, or _ever_ — and concentrates back on her punches, mindful of his eyes on her.

She keeps punching and he keeps watching her, the two of them caught together in their very own game of chicken. After a particularly well-placed side-kick — a strike with the heel of her right foot against the bag that feels _satisfying_ and even makes him stumble back slightly — he blinks first.

Having planted his feet wider and resumed his position, he clears his throat and finally breaks the tense silence. “Alright, you wanna tell me what this is all about?”

She bounces on her feet, once, twice, then strikes again, this time with her fist. “Nope.”

A tap of his hand against the bag is the only warning she gets before he lets go of it and steps back — forcing her to adjust her stance as the bag sways — and then he’s sauntering around her in a wide circle, nodding slowly as he continues his assessment of her. Even once he slips out of her line of sight, she can still very much feel his presence behind her, his gaze burning into her. It’s _distracting_.

She huffs out a breath and stops punching. He won’t let up until he solves this new puzzle, so she might as well get it over with. “Fine,” she blurts out, and starts unwrapping her hands, mostly just to give herself something to do and avoid his discerning gaze. “That day I was out with Officer Harper, we were attacked, and she had to bail me out.”

He pops up on her right, closer than before, and reaches up to place his hand on the slowly swaying bag, his biceps flexing right in front of her eyes as he stills it. “Let me guess, she was real nice about it,” he says, in a tone that suggests he’s not surprised in the slightest.

Lucy shakes her head, stepping back. “It doesn’t matter, I—” She sighs, tugging off the tape with more force than necessary. “I shouldn’t have let it happen in the first place.”

She moves past him to where she left her things in a heap on the floor at the edge of the mat, throws the tape haphazardly on top of her gym bag. She reaches up to brush away the flyaway strands of hair sticking to her temples, frustration rising all over again.

He follows right behind her. “_Chen_,” he says, so uncharacteristically soft that it makes her look up and turn to face him without thinking. “I've seen you handle yourself. I _know_ you can handle yourself. You think you’d still be here if you couldn’t?” His eyebrows raise and his tone grows more familiar, arms crossing over his chest like he’s offended that his mentorship skills have been brought into question.

It’s actually kind of endearing.

She finds herself biting back a smile, and then instantly sobers once she remembers the topic at hand. “No, I know, but… She was right. I need to learn how to fight with what I’ve got, without focusing on what I don’t.”

There’s a beat of silence, his eyes searching her expression for something while she fights the urge to fidget, and then, finally—

“Okay,” he nods, uncrossing his arms. She lets out a relieved breath, only now realizing how much it means to her that he’s taking this seriously and not simply dismissing her worries. “As long as you keep in mind that you won’t win every fight. Nobody does. We all got stories of getting our asses kicked, or being outsmarted by petty criminals, people half our size and idiots high out of their minds. Whoever tells you otherwise is lying.” He steps closer, right into her space, giving her a pointed look. “You’re human, _not the Terminator_.”

She chuckles, shifting on her feet to shake off some of the nervous energy in her limbs. This up close she has to crane her neck to maintain eye contact. “That doesn’t sound like the T.O. I know.”

“’Cause that was Tim,” he says, corners of his mouth tugging up. “This is your T.O.”

In the blink of an eye, he grabs her shoulder and yanks her towards him, spinning her around. Her back hits his chest, his arms wrapped snugly around her neck, warmth radiating off his body. On instinct, her hands reach up and grab onto his forearm, to no effect. His hold is loose enough not to hurt her, but tight enough for it to be clear that he means business.

“If there is room for improvement, there is no room for excuses, Officer Chen.”

She smiles. _That’s more like it._

Her fingers dig deeper into his arm, skin warm to the touch, and twists her body against him, testing out his hold. He responds by pinning her shoulder, tucking her even more securely against his chest. It takes her a moment longer than she’d like to regain her focus, overwhelmed by the sensations — he’s solid, warm, and all around her. And he, uh— _He smells nice_. She never really noticed that before.

He adjusts his grip, pulling her out of her thoughts — _the time and place, Lucy_ — his breath warm against her ear, sending an involuntary shiver down her spine. “Let’s see what you got.”

Now presented with a clear challenge, her smile widens. Deep in her chest, excitement flares at the thought of going up against him. _Well, if he insists…_

Without another thought, she raises her shoulders and tucks her chin into the crook of his elbow. He realizes what she’s trying to do, but it’s too late — she’s already sunk down in his hold by bending her knees, and then she steps back behind his foot to lock in his leg, turns _out_ and pulls him _down_.

He slams against the mat with a grunt, flat on his back.

He doesn’t move, not initially, his arms spread out and his chest rising and falling as he catches his breath. His shirt has ridden up just a little, revealing a strip of smooth skin.

Heartbeat still racing, she begins to back away, careful not to step on him. But then she meets his gaze and her feet are suddenly rooted to the spot, just as his expression starts changing from the initial wince.

He smiles, slow and wide, in a way that makes her feel warm all over, even though she’s already flushed from the workout. He may even be the tiniest bit impressed. There’s a glint of _something _in his eyes. Her chest tightens at the sight of it, leaving her breathless for a moment before she remembers to breathe.

_Get it together, Lucy. _Pushing aside whatever the hell has gotten into her, she steps forward and clears her throat before extending a hand down to him.

He takes it, and she pulls him to his feet, still feeling strangely off-balance, like she’s the one that just got thrown onto the ground.

“Good,” he nods, an unmistakable spark of amusement in his eyes as he assumes his position, feet planted, hands raised. Her gaze flicks from his bright eyes to the quirk of his lips, and—

_He’s enjoying this._ That oddly emboldening realization is what finally spurs her into action, has her fighting back a smile of her own as she raises her hands, mirroring his stance. He gives her a little nod, corners of his mouth tugging up like he’s convinced that this time he’ll come out on top.

She can’t wait to prove him wrong.

“Now do it again.”

_Well, if he insists._

**Author's Note:**

> i’m tempted to write a part two with sexual tension cranked up to eleven, but i’m also working on a long slow burn fic ft. the two of them, so... we’ll see what wins out.
> 
> anyway, i’m kinda nervous about this one so feedback is very much appreciated!


End file.
